Ancient natural disasters: The whole family traveled through time and was almost wiped out

Chapter 177

Yetie is what people in Luoshui County call it. It is a kind of rice cake, also made of glutinous rice flour, with fillings, both salty and sweet.

The salty dish is filled with peanuts and garlic sprouts. The fresh garlic sprouts are headed and leafed, leaving only the rhizome in the middle, split in the middle and chopped into small pieces. The peanuts are fried, pounded, and mixed with the chopped garlic sprouts. The mixture is then wrapped in glutinous rice skin, pressed into shape with a mold, and placed on tree arborvitae leaves and steamed in a steamer.

As for the sweet ones, use brown sugar and glutinous rice flour. The filling can be white sugar and crushed peanuts, or shelled mung beans.

Two different flavors, but both are delicious.

But now there are no fresh garlic sprouts, and the salty leaf paste always tastes a little bit lacking.

"It's time to put up the couplets!"

Twenty-eight, stick flowers.

Twenty-nine, stick to the upside-down You.

In some places, couplets are posted on the 28th or 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, but in Jiangjia Village, they are posted on New Year's Eve. The couplets must be posted before lunch at the latest to offer sacrifices to ancestors.

After pasting the couplets, the man in charge of the family must first offer sacrifices to the Kitchen God, let him eat first, and then go to the ancestral hall to worship the ancestors.

"Who's first?"

Jiang Lizheng asked. He was from the eldest wife and drew the second one.

"Me!" Jiang Yida raised his hand high, and the second wife Jiang the hunter and the fourth wife Jiang the tailor also raised their hands.

Jiang Lizheng placed the chicken in the middle of the offering plate and gave it to the three people respectively. He asked them to go back home and put out three bowls of rice and rice wine cooked by their own home. After the worship was over, the rice and rice wine were removed and the offering plate and the chicken were passed to the next person. The next person replaced the rice and rice wine with his own home.

Rice and rice wine may change with time, but the chicken is permanent.

Jiang Xiaomi quietly asked Jiang Xiubai: "Do you think the Kitchen God will be able to tell that it is the same chicken after eating it all? It will taste the same."

"Does it taste the same? I'm afraid it has no taste." Jiang Xiubai also said in a low voice: "I heard that the three animals offered are the same as what we humans have eaten. If they are offered a second time, the recipients can tell the difference. Do you think this is true?"

"I don't know! So if we worship this Kitchen God, we can't worship other Kitchen Gods?"

"Well, your heart is not sincere!" This is what Jiang Xiubai thought. How could the same tribute be offered to several families?

"Isn't there only one Kitchen God? How can there be one for each family?"

"You can't let him eat the leftovers again and again when there's only one of you. Who would eat more than ten meals of leftovers? Wow, Jiang Xiubin, what are you doing?"

Jiang Xiubin stuck his big head out from the gap between Jiang Xiaomi and Jiang Xiubai: "I'm eavesdropping!"

He pointed to the side again. It was Old Master Jiang and Li Zheng Jiang, who were also listening to them with their heads tilted.

Jiang Xiaomi: “…”

Jiang Xiubai: “…”

Every year when people worship gods during festivals, the Kitchen God eats first, followed by the ancestors in the ancestral hall, and finally the Gate God and Earth Dragon. This order has been passed down in Jiangjia Village for who knows how many hundreds of years.

When I heard what Jiang Xiaomi and the others said, it turned out that their ancestors and the gate officials and dragon gods ate what the Kitchen God had left over, and they didn't even know if it tasted good...

Their ancestors and the gate officials and dragon gods are too pitiful. They always eat leftovers...

In the end, the three chickens were not placed on the altar of the Kitchen God. Instead, each family cooked two dishes, placed three bowls of white rice, and poured three cups of wine as an offering to the Kitchen God. Incense was lit and paper was burned, and three prostrations were made. Three cups of wine were drunk, and half of each cup was poured on the ground in front of the stove, and the remaining half was poured back into the wine bottle.

The three chickens were placed on offering plates by Jiang Yida, Jiang the hunter and Jiang the tailor and brought into the ancestral hall and placed on the offering table in the middle of the hall. The descendants behind them brought white rice and rice wine and placed them next to the offering plates in turn. The three chickens were offered together as a sacrifice to the common ancestor of the entire Jiangjia Village.

If these three chickens had to choose between the Kitchen God, their ancestors, and the Dragon God, they would definitely choose their ancestors, the ancestors of their Jiang family.

Each room burned incense in order. Old Master Jiang lit the first stick of incense and then stood aside. He would call out the name of the room every time each person burned incense. Sometimes he couldn't remember the name, and Jiang Lizheng would quietly tell him.

After the last person finished offering incense, Jiang Yida, Jiang the Hunter and Jiang the Tailor respectively carried the offering plates into the rooms on the left, right and back, where the ancestors of the first, second and fourth rooms were enshrined.

The tree has large branches.

Jiangjia Village has grown from just one ancestor to more than 60 households, more than 600 people, nearly 700 people, and endless descendants.

Having many descendants is what our ancestors want to see the most and what the older generation is most happy about. Old Master Jiang is already smiling.

"Pack your things and go back."

Old Master Jiang said, directing everyone to take away everything that needed to be collected.

After the worship, the remaining offerings can be taken home and eaten. Today is a family reunion, and they are eating from the big pot again. The fat chef and the women in the village are busy in the kitchen.

After everyone left the ancestral hall, Tailor Jiang suddenly handed the offering plate to Old Master Jiang, and ran back to the ancestral hall of the fourth room. He knelt down with a plop, clasped his hands together and said, "May the ancestors bless my wife to have a son."

No one knows how much he was looking forward to it and how worried he was when his wife became pregnant again. The most desperate thing in the world is not losing hope, but giving you hope and then pushing you into despair again.

For many years he had accepted his fate of having only three daughters, but today he had rekindled his hope of having both a son and a daughter.

The old man of the fourth room adopted his grandfather, and from then on he became a member of the fourth room. However, in his generation, among his five brothers and sisters, he was the only one who was able to stand and live to the present, and he only had three daughters.

If his wife can't give birth to a son this time, their fourth room...

Either cut off the family line, or leave one daughter at home to find a son-in-law, or let the son of one of the daughters be named Jiang, or adopt another one.

Ugh……

The best way to break this situation is to give birth to a son, pray for the blessings of your ancestors, and love your descendants.

Lao Jiang’s kitchen.

"Xiao Shun, bring in some firewood, we don't have enough." The leaf stickers were being steamed in the steamer on the iron pot. They were almost done, but the fire couldn't keep up. If we weren't careful, they would go out. This was not good!

"Hey, Master!" Xiao Shun wiped the sweat off his face and ran out. It was a very cold day, but he was still so tired that he was sweating all over.

The firewood stored outside the yard had been soaked and was still not dry. It had to be moved into the cellar, but the wood in the cellar was all large and had to be split before it could be used.

extremely busy.

After the leaves are stuck together, the fat chef is transferring them from the steamer to another fine-meshed bamboo sieve, spreading them sparsely so that they don't stick to each other. Otherwise, when they cool down, they will break when pulled apart and look ugly.

It’s New Year’s Day, and for the sake of happiness and auspiciousness, a round red dot is put in the middle under the leaf sticker.

"Master, the fried fish are ready." Xiao Shun said.

The people in Jiangjia Village know how to live. The fish that were released into the pond that day have been kept until now, and the bigger fish are still alive, but those small fish as thick as a little finger or even smaller did not survive until now. Their internal organs were pinched out, they were cleaned and frozen in the snow. They were not turned out until today, slowly frozen, and given to the fat chef to fry.

The ice and snow are simply a natural refrigerator. For the first time, the people in Jiangjia Village feel that the cold winter has its benefits. Look, these fish can be frozen in the snow and will not go bad for a long time!

Butcher Jiang felt very sorry. If only he had a pig to kill at this time, the pork would be frozen in the snow and he could just take one piece and eat it until spring.

He even excitedly went to find the hunter Jiang, hoping to bring some people up the mountain to hunt wild boars. The children could find chickens training on the mountain behind the house, so there was no reason why they couldn't find a wild boar!

It is a tradition to kill the New Year pig during the Chinese New Year, but this year nothing happened.

But Jiang the Hunter retorted, saying that if he wanted to die, don't take him with you and just go quietly.

The fat chef looked over and nodded, "Okay, take it out and drain the oil, sprinkle some salt evenly, and see if the fish over there is cooked."

In the pot is the big fish weighing seven or eight kilograms, which has been raised until today.

"Okay!" Xiao Shun closed the lid on one side and opened the lid on the other side. He leaned back to avoid the hot air that came out when he opened the lid. His vision was blocked by the hot air. He fanned himself and could barely see clearly: "Master, the juice is almost collected."

"Watch out, don't burn the pot!"

"understood!"

There will be abundance every year, so how can there be no fish on the New Year’s dinner table!

Seven or eight kilograms of fish were put into a large wooden basin, and some smaller fish were put into another plate.

The pig's head was also removed and cut into plates.

Other dishes also came one after another.

The six dishes symbolize good luck in the coming year.

I originally wanted to make ten dishes, but there were not enough ingredients, so after putting them all together, I could only make eight. Oops, this "eight" is not an auspicious number - "seven up and eight down", oh no!

No hit!

"Come on, drink!"

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the banquet started in Jiangjia Village. It was the last day of the year, so don't think about anything. Just eat, drink and have fun. Jiang Lizheng had five jars of wine brought out, and it seemed that he planned not to go home until he had a drink.

Ah, no need to go back, you are already at home.

They had already gone home.

Young people like Jiang Xiaomi and the little kids did not join their drinking party. They left the table after eating. The little kids ran around and they had to help look after them.

As for the women, they had to clean up the empty tables. There were hundreds of people's dishes, and it took a long time to wash the dishes every time. This was one of the reasons why the fat chef resented the big pot meals.

After dinner, the servants have a day off and can relax on the last day of the old year.

However, what they didn't know was that as early as noon, Governor Wen had brought his men to the gate of Luoshui County, but were blocked by the high city walls and thick gates. No matter how they knocked on the gate, no one responded. Governor Wen was so angry that he drew his sword and slashed the gate twice. The sword collided with the rivets on the door, making a harsh metallic sound. With such a great force, the gate suffered some superficial injuries.

"Chen Nuo!"

Call Chen Nuo to see me!"

"You are so rebellious! Do you know who you are stopping? It's you, the governor! The governor has something to do in the city, why don't you open the gate and welcome him!"

"Chen Nuo, you are so bold that you dare to close the city gate without permission. What is your intention? Are you going to rebel?"

Quiet, very quiet.

No matter how loud the noise was outside the city, the city remained as quiet as a chicken, even though County Magistrate Chen was right at the city gate.

The soldiers guarding the city gate were sweating profusely, but they still listened to County Magistrate Chen and refused to open the city gate.

To bid farewell to the old and usher in the new, we must stay up all night on New Year’s Eve.

You can't sleep during the New Year's Eve. Jiang Xiaomi and Jiang Xiubai had bought a batch of playing cards, playing Landlord, Find Friends, and Die Big D. They were having a lot of fun and didn't feel sleepy. But it was hard for the three, four, five, six, seven, and eight-year-old children. They didn't know how to play. It was time to go to bed again. Their little heads were getting sleepy. Old Master Jiang touched their heads one by one: "Wake up, wake up, don't fall asleep, eat some... leaf stickers?"

I originally wanted to ask for some candy, but I didn’t have any. I wanted to coax the child, but I had no equipment at all.

"Don't eat."

Jiang Xiaomai was about to fall asleep, but was woken up by someone. She pouted and was about to cry.

As soon as the village was unsealed, many married women returned to their parents’ home - no matter what the relationship was, they would feel uneasy if they didn’t go back.

Except for a team of people on duty, everyone else in the patrol team was given a holiday. Those who had wives accompanied their wives back to their parents' homes, and those who didn't had wives went home to sleep - that was impossible. Even if you wanted to sleep, your mother wouldn't agree because there was a lot of work to do at home!

"Go, check on your mother-in-law's family, and come back and tell me if you have any questions!" Jiang Quezi took out a large bag and handed it to his daughter-in-law, and then told his eldest grandson: "Be careful when driving the car, don't try to be brave, and take turns with your uncles, or you will freeze to death!"

"Got it, sir! With gloves, a hat, and a mask, you won't be too cold."

"Dad, stop pretending. I'm just going to take a look and then come back. I won't stay overnight."

"No, that's etiquette!"

Jiang Cuzi stuffed another bundle onto the ox cart. He felt indescribable guilt towards his daughter-in-law. She was widowed at a young age. Her family asked her to remarry but she refused. She had to work in the fields outside and take care of the family at home. There was still an old man like him in the family. Some gossipers from other villages always gossiped about her behind her back, saying that even though she lost her son, she still had her father. They said whatever unpleasant things she could.

"Be careful, it's snowing so heavily! Ask your mother to put the hot water bottle in your pocket!"

"Oh, I know, mom!"

In Jiangjia Village, many mothers-in-law packed their bags and sent their sons and daughters-in-law to their parents' homes. It was snowing heavily and the roads were difficult to travel on, so some families who lived far away but also nearby hired the ox cart from the Jiang family.

However, one of Liu and Qin was in poor health and the other was pregnant, so it was inconvenient for them to go back. They could only ask the servants and maids to harness the carriage and bring them over.

Jiang Yiyu and Jiang Yitao went to the county town early in the morning. They didn't have time to accompany their father-in-law and mother-in-law. In fact, since County Magistrate Chen came in person, Jiang Yipei could only go to the county town with him. Jiang Yiyu and Jiang Yitao went to the county to deal with some things - if there were more things at home, they would have an excuse.